News from the two-sided drum shaped coin that is Ringo Starr, aka Richard Starkey. Talking to BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, Ringo’s endearing policy of loving everything was still very much in evidence. ‘I am in love with love. I love it,’ he claimed, amid observations that 33% of the titles on new album Liverpool 8 feature the word ‘love’. ‘It’s a love album,’ affirmed the drummer.
Indeed. The fourth Beatle’s previous release was even called Choose Love. Perhaps if you add up all the mentions of love in both albums, find the total figure and square it by six, might it have some kind of astrological significance? One wonders if Ringo is weaving a romantic Da Vinci Code to ensnare the world in the raptures of love, a masterplan that will slot into place like the cogs of a Swiss clock this Valentine’s Day.
Ringo’s sense of love appears to be all-encompassing, and even extends to household chores. ‘I love to do the dishes.’ He claims , with relish. However, some believe he is capable of not mentioning it – indeed, an appearance on Friday Night With Jonathan Ross when Ringo failed to profess his love for Liverpool – and made a ‘comedy face’ at suggestions of his moving back there – provoked hostility from Liverpudlians.
Another point to emerge is Mr Starr’s unerring sense of rhythm, despite a confessed lack of practice: ‘I did it twice in Liverpool in 1958 and that was it.’ He does admit to unconscious tapping – perhaps this serves the same purpose. However, there was a rather unfortunate incident at a gig in Minneapolis in1965 that distracted his reliable ‘rock lope’. That rascal Bob Dylan introduced Ringo to the mysteries of marijuana, and the effects were disastrous: ‘I couldn’t play at any speed,’ he confessed. ‘And I’ve fallen off the rostrum occasionally.’ Ouch.
Later in the interview, Ringo discussed the land of dreams – where he is avowedly Richard Starkey – relating a stream of psychedelic imagery which would have been quite a home in the Beatles’ colourful sitar period. ‘What about the lion. What about the big blue dogs, what do they mean? What are those chickens doing here,’ went the lengthy ‘joke’.
Doubtless there is a code in there, somewhere, that philosophers will be unravelling for decades to come.
News hour, with Jerry Caesar 